got notes?

Who is that one person you trust to read your work? 

I don't know who yours is, but we all have one. Or should have one. And mine has rotated through the years. From a trusted college friend who kept me from flinging early plays over a freeway overpass... to my husband at the time who helped me understand I had a writing career because I was funny not just lucky. When we got divorced unfortunately the role of my writing buddy went with him. 

Those times between writing confidantes can be scary. Showing your massive insecurities scribbled on paper to a new person is arduous. Will they love you? Will they trash you? A writing teacher I had once said, "If somebody called you a bad driver... would you stop driving? Of course not. But when people don't like your writing you're willing to throw it away? Why does their opinion matter more than yours?"

Years ago while searching for the right writing confidante I asked a good good friend to read a script I was working on. When it came time to give me notes, he didn't give me notes... he SKEWERED me with notes. It was like a pencil through the heart. Nothing was worthy of his praise. Everything I did seemed shoddy. By the end I even questioned my comma placement. I was stunned. My sweet buddy turned into a literary Cujo in the time it took to read a script. Years later another friend told me he had asked this same friend to read something and he shredded him as well. The point being, he is who he is. He's a bad note giver. And now we know. And we will never ask him again. Never. Ever. But he remains one of my favorite dinner companions and that's enough.   

Now the arduous task of reading my first drafts and propping up my fragile ego lies with my fiance. A very smart compassionate man. He neither shreds me or lies to me, he's just honest. And it's hard for me to ask anybody to read anything. I'm wasting their time... I should know how to do this myself... My mind goes many places but "You are brilliant -- move on" isn't one of them.

The thing I've learned about my fiance is... he LOVES to give notes. He will give notes on an old movie we see on the couch together... like the director isn't dead and is longing to take another crack at the battlefield scene. At concerts he's been known to tell a soundboard guy that his levels are off. (and surprisingly they usually thank him) My favorite notes though were the notes given in Amsterdam. We went to a live sex show in the redlight district (oh, don't judge, it's like their Disneyland) and this girl was doing a... let's say "novelty act" with a lit cigar. And during this dubious act to rock music my fiance leaned over to me, irritated and said... "She's not puffing on the beat!" Thirty people in the room and I can guarantee no one was thinking about her rhythm but him. I was mostly hoping she was well-paid to do something that would kill her grandmother.

I practically had to restrain him from giving her notes on the way out where she was enjoying a hard-earned cigarette. From another, ah, orifice.

So for once I don't feel guilty asking someone to read what I've written. He always has, need I say... the notes. 

(Photo)

why do I bother?

I saw an old tivo'd episode of "60 Minutes" last night. It had a segment about a big coal ash spill in Tennessee. It was disgusting to watch and sad to hear about all the lives it affected. It made a pristine land look like a tar pit overnight. The fish literally jumped out of the water rather than be in there with the black gooey coal ash. The water was poisoned, the land destroyed... but what do we expect? Byproducts from manufacturing will magically disappear? When the trash in my trashcans is hauled away I'm grateful. I don't know where it goes. I assume because I pay taxes they've paid someone to figure out the ethical and environmentally friendly way to get rid of my crap. Perhaps my assumption is unrealistic but I do not have a sanitation engineering degree and it would do no one any good to assume I could ever become an expert in this stuff and help. 

So we do what we can, right?

I bought recycled kitchen counter tops. Even though granite counter tops are the last thing I want to spend money on right now... my counter tops were faded yellow 50's tile that had bowed from water damage and looked like they harbored bacteria from the Eisenhower era. Every time I came home from a trip I'd think, "I'm so glad to be home!" Then I'd walk in the kitchen and think, "My god those counter tops are ugly!" I won't go into the gnarly grout or the big chunks missing from corners... let's just say I held my breath and finally wrote a check.

And buying granite counter tops isn't rocket science. Once you decide actual granite takes too much upkeep... your other choice is a man-made product like Caesarstone or Silestone. These man-made granites have no upkeep. Perfect for the cook whose most sophisticated cleaning implement is a sponge.

We chose a man-made granite that was "recycled." Now, not to toot my own horn but we could have chosen a regular one with less recycled materials but I felt good thinking I used someone's castoffs, they still look beautiful and I'm helping the environment.

Right?

Well, per "60 Minutes" this black mucky coal ash has a toxic component called fly ash (it's the dry coal byproduct)... which they don't know what to do with. So what they do is... put it in our stuff. Brilliant, huh? Disguise it as something good. So our recycled products like bowling balls and concrete and.... of course... kitchen counter tops... have coal fly ash.

Like mine. Or I'm assuming. It doesn't show up on the company's website. But the word "recycled" sounds better than "receptacle for toxic materials." My counter tops are even ash grey. There's some irony.

I immediately went from feeling good about myself to... will I poison my family now if I throw a lettuce leaf back in the bowl that fell on the kitchen counter? My son thinks they put sparkles in the granite to distract you from the toxins. Of course all the toxins are sealed into whatever-the-hell man made recycled granite actually is. So my fiance said it's probably just a problem for the working class guys who fabricate it. I wonder if they know.

We went to visit the fabrication facility to pick out our granite (or granite-lite which is what man made probably is)... and the workers were cutting slabs in a warehouse. The air was thick with granite dust... or in the case of the recycled stuff... fly ash... toxic fly ash. These workers were wearing little surgical masks but their hair and faces were thick with this dust. Every surface you touched or sample book you picked up was coated in it.

Would I have chosen it had I known? No. Can I do anything about it now? No.

So, I feel a little sad now when I look at my new kitchen counter tops. They still look beautiful but who knows what dangers lurk below. 

(Photo #1) (Photo #2)

letting go and clicking publish

I've decided I'm going to power through these blogs. Last week I spent a day each on my blogs. Yes, one day to write and rewrite ONE blog. Would someone with massive insecurity and OCD do it any other way? So as of today I'm going to... (as the multimillion dollar athletes tell us) "Just do it!" And let me add, they "just do it" because someone is also paying them millions of dollars. I, on the other hand, am paid in "personal accomplishment." All things being equal I'd rather live a shallow life on a Lakers salary. Or write a blog on a Lakers salary. (why not... when a bell rings an angel gets its wings, when someone blogs something must happen in the universe)

So from now on I will just write the damn thing. No more, "Honey, can you read this before I post it?" Not that I don't ADORE feedback (of the constructive uplifting kind of course) but all a perfectionist needs is another person giving them input. "You mean that made sense if I changed it, or you think it still makes sense if I don't change it?" So today when my fiance asked if he could read my blog I said, "Sure, but I already posted it." I think we were both surprised. And I added, "But no notes." Then I went to the kitchen and got myself some tea. After five minutes of no comment from his end I started to get the perfectionist jitters. "Did I nail it? Did I blow it? Is he stunned into silence by the content? Is he taking time to dab his eyes after laughing so hard he cried?" Finally he stepped out of my office and said tentatively "I know you don't want me to give you notes but do you want to know about the typos?"

Well, yes, of course I want to know about the typos. At least typos lead to constructive obsessing. I like to change those. As a writer I spend so much time looking at the typos they start to look normal. Finding typos is like a public service announcement. Nobody likes to hear them but everybody benefits. My favorite typo was "Cheetio." A cross between a Cheeto and a Cheerio. He asked if I meant to do that. I said no and changed it to Cheetos. Though I like "Cheetios" as a typo. It could be a new snack food for adulterers, "New from Kellogg's... Cheetios! A quick pick-me-up snack for cheaters! When you get the munchies between the cheap motel and home... think Cheetios!"

So, I fixed the typos and hit "publish post" again and let it go. It only took me an hour or so to do the whole blog. Not a day. And I typed in the code for underlining and I did a photo link ALL BY MYSELF.

I think I deserve a big bowl of Cheetios.

(Photo)

blogicide

Yes, I almost committed blogicide. I almost pulled the cyberplug on this blog. The feeling of "the world has passed me by, everybody knows more about social media than I do, what's the point?" put up a big fat wall between me and the keyboard. It wasn't writer's block. It was writer's despair. Every time I don't know what to do I freeze. Then I figure I must be better at something else. Something must be more fluid and supply natural motivation. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly... I... have no idea what my medium is. I know it's words... somewhere.

Not that I'm naive enough to believe that everything in life should be fun or easy. But I particularly like things I'm good at. For exercise, a lot of my friends do spinning. Spinning is my idea of enduring a root canal while moving my legs. But rowing, on the otherhand, kicks my butt but I love it. I'm good at it, it feels natural and I don't feel like a big loser when I do it.

This weekend my son helped me redesign my blog. I'm not sure it's... the one, but I learned a lot. Like if I have to scroll through 307 pages of wallpaper for my blog I will not make it past page 30. My first attempt at design was alarming. It had dots and stripes and bold colors that jumped out at you like a clown with a sledgehammer. But it was nice to see things happen with the click of a mouse or by typing in a code. To me this process is like watching Science Fiction Theatre and to him it's like a dolphin playing in the water. He does it all at the speed of light. Like the joy I used to feel playing in the ocean -- my son gets designing websites. Then he shows me how to do the things he has just done and I cry. I do. I admit it right here. It is so frustrating. If he shows me and then I can't repeat the process I want to get a bag of Cheetos and find an "I Love Lucy" rerun and bathe in my "loserness." It's like being a grownup and learning how to ski. It's just easier to learn if you're a fearless toddler. My son is like a sleek elegant slalom racer, moving quickly, quietly, painlessly down the mountain. I am among the spectators in awe. 

Today I needed to put a classified ad on the internet. I needed to create a gmail account for email. And I did it. I created it by myself and I even forwarded it to my existing account. These are baby steps but it felt like I was finally going somewhere. 

I know I have to learn a certain amount of this information to exist in the future. But if I want to compete in the future I have to be as good or better. And even if I closed the door for the next six months and pretended I don't have a life that involves responsibilities I couldn't be as natural and fluid as my son. I am a writer. A technophobe writer. I need to write the words and try to find a place for the words in this strange new world. And this feels like a fulltime occupation. And it doesn't pay well. Okay, it doesn't pay at all. So instead of practicing at doing a blog... I either need to find a blog topic (yes, "a girl starting a blog" is a topic but it's pretty general) and write the hell out of it... or not.

I'm being honest when I say, I don't know what direction to head my boat currently. Will the internet take me anywhere? Or am I just looking for a smooth ride on uncharted waters?

(Photo)